


Sons of the Alpha

by traipsingexodus



Series: Homunculus [12]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Ancient Secrets, Ancient Technology, Cults, Desert, Exploration, Hoenn Region, Sequel To Au Coup Par Coup, Worldbuilding, archeology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-03-16 09:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13633704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traipsingexodus/pseuds/traipsingexodus
Summary: Beneath the sands of the Hoenn's desert lays an ancient place lost to time. Keala Hashimoto and her sneasel, Diane, creep through dark and winding tunnels, searching for secrets and clues of a dead history. Here, where only the ice-like jewel around Diane's neck can guide them, they must contend with the puzzles and traps of ancient man, and flee from the pursuit of modern man.[Sequel to the Epilogue of Au Coup Par Coup][Renamed Sons of the Alpha, originally Jewel of the Desert]





	1. Chapter 1

**I: JEWEL OF THE DESERT**

 

_In the time that came before, the land was not as it is. The Elder Titan had shaped the continents and then was sealed to hold fast the crust of the world. The Titans of the land, the Titans of Rock, Steel and Ice sent forth their own reminders to the inhabitants of the land that the direction of the Elder Titan, and the machinations of the Alpha, would hold them safe._

_But unrest would tear the world asunder. The Titans crumbled, buried into the land the Grand Titan sought to carefully shape. The Alpha saw the Titans crumble, lost beneath the tides of burning rock and misting spray as the Primals fought to the bitter end._

_With a great cry and a grand crack heard rippling across the land, the Alpha called down the Sky and smothered the Land and Sea._

_The damage had been done and new land and new seas had risen. The Titans had crumbled into the belly of the earth and slept now with the Elder. The Alpha disappeared, bound for parts unknown and named the Sky, "Sentinel."_

_The Sentinel spread itself across the skies of the world, and now it stares, ever watchful, upon Creation. It remembers the monument to its work, the monument that the hands of Man built to commemorate their savior._

_Give thanks, grace, glory and honor to the Sky!_

_The Sentinel watches over us all, and ensures that never again will the might of the Primal Land nor the crash of the Primal Sea consume the earth again._

_Give thanks, grace, glory and honor to the Alpha!_

_Without the might of the Old One, the Alpha, Man would never have known prosperity._

_Pay respects to the Titans that fell, for their task was thankless, and endlessly now do they rest._

_Remember the Titans that fell._

* * *

The sounds of sand spraying against the hood of the jeep, against the doors, and along the undercarriage formed a pleasant rhythm with the purr of the engine and the rushing of the wind. Keala leaned back in her seat, one hand resting against the steering wheel, providing only minor corrections now and again. "Unless I'm mistaken, Diane, I think we're just about there." The sneasel to her right stirred in her seat and sat up proper with a yawning mewl. She fixed the shawl she wore over head head and draped it across her shoulders, then pulled her pendant loose from underneath the cloth. "You know, I'm kind of jealous I'm not wearing that right now. Could use with a bit of cooling." The sneasel gave her a toothy grin and a meow in response and stood in her seat to look over the dashboard at the scenery as it whipped past them.

"According those handy pictures I took back in Lumiose, there should be some kind of structure coming up. Not too sure why exactly the KMHPS would expect  _anything_  concerning Kalosian history to be out in the middle of the desert here in Hoenn but- oh!" She squinted up at an imposing rock formation ahead. "That looks like the place, Di. You ready to do some pick work?"

Diane responded by opening the glove compartment and removing a comically small pick, sized for her, and held it aloft with a wide smile. It was almost useless, meant mostly to gauge rock integrity than anything else, but she had her trainer carry it around nonetheless. She turned back to looking over the dashboard and let out an impressed meow at the sight of the rock formation.

It sort of resembled a breadbox.

The jeep pulled up to the imposing face of the stone formation. Keala turned off the car and hopped out, then rounded to its trunk and began to pull her gear out. Ropes, picks, flares, glow sticks, UV luminescent chalk, standard chalk - she let out a sigh of exertion as she affixed everything to various portions of her person, hanging pieces here, looping pieces there and slotting pieces into holders wherever room was left. She wiped her forehead and took a swig from her canteen. "C'mon up. I'll take extra weight over burnin' up in this heat." The sneasel hopped up onto her trainer's back. The waistpack Keala wore proved exceptionally useful for Diane, who could use it as a makeshift seat as she hung off her trainer's back.

The duo made their way closer to the rock. "Well… uh… see any entrances?" she asked, frowning. "'Cos all I'm getting is a big ol' buzz-off rock." A meow of agreement rose up behind her and she sighed. "Thought cats' eyes were meant for catching stuff sharpish. Maybe that's birds- ow!" She jumped as Di let out an insulted sounding meow and poked her side. "Sorry, sorry, not your fault. Little devil. Just for that, you get to climb up to the entrance and drop the rope if it's above ground, though."

Diane responded with a meow of reluctant affirmation and hugged Keala tighter. The archeologist felt immense gratitude - the cat was effectively an ice pack that never melted. In the mounting midday heat that surrounded them, and the harsh, brilliant sunlight that bore down upon them and the hot sand, any respite was welcome respite.

The two wandered about the rock, making their way roughly one-half circuit around when Keala stopped and shouted, "Look at this! Divots, like in those machines back in that chamber!" She made her way closer to the rock and ran her hand across the hot stone, feeling the smooth, curiously polished interior of each one. Diane hopped off her back and joined her in contemplating the divots, but could not reach up to feel them. "Let's see here...three by three… I've only got one stone sphere thing." She pulled it from her belt, where it sat hooked next to Diane's pokeball and held it up before her face, frowning all the while. She traced her eyes from the nine divots up to a crease in the rocks. "Always with the secret chambers and cryptic puzzles…" She pressed her stone sphere into the center divot. Nothing happened. "Ancient man was an asshole, Di. ...Di? What's that?" She pointed to the soft glow emanating from beneath the sneasel's head-and-shoulders-scarf. Even in the light of the sun it managed to stand out.

Diane rummaged under her scarf and pulled her pendant out into view. It was a bluish, glittery and crystalline lump of what appeared to be ice, and at this moment it was shining with a brilliant white light. "Not even in the heat of the sun, eh, Di?" she said, grinning. It seemed to be completely impervious to melting, despite ostensibly being nothing but a lump of ice. "Gods above, what the hell is this thing? Take it off for a sec, will you? I wanna see something…" With some hesitation, Diane pulled the necklace from around her neck and offered it to her trainer.

"You'll get it back, don't worry. I know how much you like it," cooed Keala. She raised it up to the center divot and pressed it against the smooth stone. The pendant flashed and the divot began to glow a soft red.

"Hmm. Well, Di, I have solved our puzzle. Probably." She moved the pendant to the hole above, and the red glow in the center divot vanished. "Or I haven't? What the…" She pressed the pendant into the center hole again, whereupon it began to glow red once more, then instead moved her pendant to the divot below. "Oh come on, what is it with ancient man and his weird, unwieldy door locks?" She pressed the pendant into the center divot once more and then to the divot to the left. Both glowed a steady red. This time, she moved the pendant to the divot above…

After twenty painstaking minutes, Keala stared back at a set of divots. The first column of three divots glowed red, the center divot of the second column glowed, and the middle and lower dot of the third column glowed. "Well, guess it's just…" She tapped the pendant to the last unlit divot in the third column and it began to glow red as well. All of the lights flashed a bright blue and then the glow faded, With the sound of stone scraping against stone, the stone the divots were carved into began to slide into the earth, revealing an entryway into a dark, cavernous chamber.

"Ha! Alright, Di, let's find out what the hell that map back in Kalos was trying to show us!" she exclaimed, excited. With a rousing meow from Diane as her response, Keala switched her flashlight on and hung it from loop on her shirt. She crept through the entryway into the cavern it led into, Diane at her side. With a low whistle, she turned left and right, the beam shining from her chest casting a long cone that illuminated slick sandstone walls - and a curiously smooth section of floor. "Is that...a path?" she asked, puzzled. She pointed out the smooth section that stretched out into the dark beyond the cone of her flashlight.

Diane padded over to start of the smooth stone path that juxtaposed with the rough, uneven floor that surrounded it, the claws on her feet scratching a soft ss _tak sstak_  into the air. She got down on all fours and ran a clawed finger along the ground, then meowed inquisitively. She turned her head to Keala and shrugged.

"C'mon, let's follow it. Doesn't look like there's any other way to go deeper anyway," said Keala. She passed up Diane and beckoned for her to follow. The sneasel caught up and the two began to make their way down the smooth path - as they followed it, it began to slope downwards. Cracks here and there, bits of gravel and the occasional partial cave-in impeded their progress infrequently, and after five minutes of walking, the two found themselves at a bend that sent them down an incline of still more smooth path.  _What the hell was that weird map for? This place seems more like a tomb than anything… I don't know of any tombs in Hoenn that would be of interest to a society that cares about_ Kalosian Monarchy.  _That just doesn't make sense. This better not be a wasted day. Maybe I was too excited- oh. It's flattened out._

Keala looked around the landing the bend created and focused on a curious sconce that jutted from the wall. She pulled a lighter free from a pouch and handed it to Diane. "Jump on up to my shoulders and see if there's anything to light in that sconce, will ya?"

Di replied with a happy meow and a nod of her head and took the lighter from her friend. She clambered onto Keala's shoulders. The archeologist heard the sneasel struggle to get the wheel to spark, and then a purr of content, cut off immediately with a growl of displeasure. Keala frowned. "Nothing in there, huh?"

The sneasel hopped down from her trainer's shoulders and handed her back the lighter with a shake of her head. She peered past Keala's legs and pointed to the sloping path further down and let out a soft, inquisitive purr.

"Yeah, let's keep going, I guess," agreed Keala, stowing the lighter.

The incline led to another bend, to another incline, to another bend that became a long, flat section of tunnel. Keala squinted towards the end of the tunnel from where the incline evened out. "This is long. Really long." She tweaked her flashlight left and right and gasped. Stone supports jutted from along the walls of the tunnel every few meters. Pillars of stone that ran along the vertical walls stretched up to the ceiling and created a large arch that crossed the smoothly curving ceiling. She approached one of the pillars and details upon it came into relief.

"By the Tapu… Di, that's- that's  _the_  Regirock." She ran her hand up the stone carving of the fabled titan and traced her eyes up to the ceiling, where its hands reached towards- "Rayquaza." Keala felt her legs nearly give out. "Th-this, th-this…" Her eyes widened. "We need to get moving. I have to see what's at the end of this tunnel. This could be big. Really big. Bigger than anything we've ever found before!" She made to continue down the tunnel and stopped in her tracks when she noticed the next pillar in the tunnel was shaped differently. "That's  _the_  Regice. And I bet-" She raced to the next pillar and whooped. "That's Registeel. Diane, I don't know what we found, maybe some tomb, maybe some kind of proof about those old legends they don't ever stop blabbing about in Sinnoh and Johto, but, but but- come on!"

She sprinted down the corridor, the loud  _tk tk tk_  of Diane's claws scratching against the stone floor ringing out just behind her, barely audible over her own heavy footfalls and the sloshing, jingling and rustling of her myriad of equipment and supplies she'd strapped to herself.

A lonely, defiant beam of light illuminated little of the inky black chamber the two found themselves in. Keala inched her way into the cavernous room with slow, steady, careful steps. She squinted against the oppressive black and swore under her breath. "Can't see shit here." The cone of light that issued from the flashlight at her chest illuminated a pillar, and with a start, she drew closer, revealing an empty, featureless stone basin lying upon the pedestal - just beyond it, a sheer drop. A tingle ran down Keala's spine, and she stopped and shone her flashlight along the rim.  _This hole is_ huge. She pulled a flare from a pouch and struck it to life, sending red sparks dancing into the air.

Keala took in her freshly illuminated surroundings and began to walk her way around the hole. With her free hand, she pulled out her compass and made her way to the northeast, and found a tunnel led off somewhere. She tugged a piece of chalk loose and tossed it to the sneasel. "Mark 'er up!" With a grin, the sneasel marked the entrance to the tunnel with a sharp set of nonsense markings, purring contentedly all the while. When she'd finished, she turned to Keala with an expectant look on her face and a smug grin on her lips. The archeologist rolled her eyes and admitted, "Job well done there, Diane. Come on, let's keep going 'round this thing."

They found another tunnel to the northwest from their original position, and with a whistle, Keala pointed at the wall beside the tunnel. Diane scrawled a wobbly circle on the wall and then handed the chalk back to Keala, then immediately began to paw at her trainer's leg, her other paw reaching up towards the flare with an innocent look on her face.

"Pfft, alright, alright, sure. Go ahead," relented Keala. She handed the flare to the sneasel and with a happy meow, she took the lead, waving the flare about through the air, eyes focused more upon the dancing sparks that shot from it than the shape of their surroundings.

Keala watched the edges of the hole as they walked back to their starting point, and let out a low whistle. "This thing is  _huge._ " She estimated it was perhaps sixty feet in diameter, and given the generally smooth nature of the edge the hole had, possibly manmade. "What the hell is this hole even for?"

She walked slowly around the hole with Diane in front, and upon reaching where they started, she marked the wall with the symbol of a house and tucked the chalk away. She then turned and approached the pedestal to inspect the stone basin upon it. It was smooth and curiously well polished, but bore no markings of any kind, nor any grooves or hidden buttons as she worked her hands along it and around it.

"Well, let's check the northeast tunnel then, Di," mumbled Keala as she moved from the basin to peer over the edge down into the hole. She took the flare gently from the sneasel, ignoring the pout on her face, and held it over the edge of the hole and looked down again.  _Zilch. Gods. How far down does this thing go? I'd drop this flare if- aw, to hell with it. Nothing ventured…_  She dropped the flare into the hole to the sound of an alarmed hiss and then a soft whine from Diane, and the watched the flare fall down into the hole. Down. Down. Down.

Darkness.

"Did it just- did it just wink out of existence or something? Hit some water? I didn't hear anything, did you?" asked Keala, incredulous. The sneasel shook her head, now on all fours and peering as far down into the hole as she could manage.

"C'mon, let's go. Might as well figure out where this tunnel takes us. Maybe we'll find something to put in that empty basin on that pedestal." Her flashlight illuminated a small portion of the tunnel and revealed it to be both long and downward sloping. There were no pillars lining the walls in this tunnel. "Hope whatever is at the end is worth it." Diane meowed in agreement.

* * *

Janus watched the desert whip past him with a frown and wiped the sweat from his brow. "First alarm we've had in months." His tone was almost accusatory. "You trust your vibrava's, ah,  _report,_ Brother Victor? It would be most unfortunate for this to be a  _total waste of my time._ "

The driver of the buggy gulped and ignored the snickering that came from the backseat where three more passengers sat. "I am positive, sir. Vibrava followed the buggy at a distance, and while the camera he wore failed before they had done anything but walk around the rock, the woman and her sneasel seemed to know exactly what they were doing."

"You could tell all that from just a few seconds of video, could you, Brother Victor?" needled Janus.

"Y-yes, sir, I could. They were slow and deliberate. I asked vibrava if they had gone into the rock and he told me that yes, they had. One buzz for yes, two for no, sir. I asked several times. One buzz, every single time."

In the distance, Janus saw a parked jeep come into view as they crested over a sand dune, but the heat of the desert cast much of the imposing stone in the distance in a distorted haze. "Very well, Victor, but I hope you realize that if this is a false lead, the punishment is rather severe. We are in need of  _volunteers_  to penetrate further into that accursed Society to dismantle its delusions of grandeur and-" Janus cut his sentence short and his mouth dropped as they drew closer to the jeep and the rock itself. The distortions created by the heat had vanished and revealed an opening in the rock that did not appear to be the product of explosives.

"Stop, stop, stop!" shouted Janus. Everyone in the buggy lurched forward as Victor slammed on the brakes and with shaking hands, Janus sprang from his seat and ran to the trunk of the buggy. "We draw closer to the holy plains of the Alpha, my brothers! Open and free is the tomb of a  _Titan_!" The three other men and Victor had scarcely gotten out of the buggy when they bowed their heads in prayer at this news. A droning, rhythmic, mumbled prayer issued from all of them. Janus joined in, though he did not bow his head. Instead, he pulled several white robes from the trunk and handed one off to each man. They were double-stitched at each hem, with one set of stitches done in rainbow threading, and the other in a soft, shimmering gold.

Janus pulled a coarse grey robe from the car and pulled it on. Intricate embroidery done in golden thread lined his sleeves and wound up along them, meeting in the center of his chest and creating the golden cross-wheel of Arceus. He watched the men dress, and when they had finished, he raised his hands and said, "My brothers, we have been blessed with an opportunity.  _Sit laus deo!_ " The men echoed his statement enthusiastically. "Gather the supplies we will require to dive into these unknown, sacred depths. And you, Victor, come here."

The man approached and nodded. "Yes, sir?"

Janus threw his arm around Victor and pulled him close. "You were correct. And now, we must find this woman, and we must squeeze all she knows from her brain. We can only hope she is not here on behalf of that foul Society," he whispered.

"But, s-sir, what if she is?"

"Then it is very likely she may not tell us anything," admitted Janus. He pulled Victor closer still and looked the man in the eyes. "Whereupon our course of action is simple: we will break her."


	2. Chapter 2

Keala stepped through the corridor with Diane at her side and glanced about. Her flashlight struggled against the oppressive darkness before her. She squinted, and a soft purr of intrigue rose up from her right. "Been too long, eh, Di?" she asked, a broad smile on her face. "Feels great to be back in the-" A loud click rang out in the tunnel, and the tile beneath her foot depressed itself into the ground. The archeologist seized the sneasel and dove forward, rolling across the ground to the sound of several more clicks as her body depressed more tiles. Behind her, spikes exploded from the ceiling in sets of six.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" She struggled to get herself to her feet while still moving forwards, her feet struggling to find even ground as tile after tile depressed into the ground. She desperately scooped Diane up into her chest, and with great difficulty and a groan of exertion, pulled her legs into agreement with the rest of her body and bounded down the tunnel. The walls around her came into relief for a split second before they were swallowed by the lightless ruins once more as she ran.

A stomach-high wall came into view suddenly, and with a startled yelp, she dove sideways past it, landing roughly on her shoulder and skidding along the ground several feet. She laid herself out on her back and listened to the sounds of the last of the spikes that had shot out of the tunnel's ceiling as they retracted slowly. They filled the air with a loud, metallic grinding sound.

"Gods almighty, that really hurt…" She clutched her shoulder and massaged it, then raised her head off the cold, stone ground and looked up at the concerned eyes and furrowed brow of her sneasel. "You okay?"

Diane knelt down, and licked her trainer's cheek once. She padded over to her trainer's injured shoulder and did her best to mimic the massaging motion without poking her long claws into her. A concerned mewling rose in the air as she looked Keala in the eyes and frowned.

"No, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. Didn't even pull anything. Ugh, I think. Just gimme a sec to…" She got to her feet, the arm attached to the shoulder that bore the abuse shaking a tad too much for her liking as she put weight on it, and tried to ignore the soft stinging pain in it. "Can't be anything worse than a very light sprain, if anything. I'll forget about it no time." She let out a low whistle. "Haven't dealt with traps in forever… Should have been more careful."

She unhooked her flashlight from its holder and peered around the cavernous chamber she and the sneasel now stood in, and her eyes were drawn to the structure in the middle of the room. Light flickered across a tall pillar of stone, light reflecting now and again off the glass panels set into it. "Whoa…" Keala stepped towards the pillar, scanning the ground for tiles that looked out of the ordinary before stepping into the depression the pillar rose out of and inspecting the glass more closely.

The glass was black, polished to a mirror shine, and seemed to have an ever changing pattern of fractals just beneath the surface. She rubbed a finger against it - it was cold to the touch, and curiously free of dust. The stone the mirrors were set into had multiple scratched glass orbs peppered throughout, and tarnished strips of metal made a pattern along the length of the pillar that reminded her of circuitry. She walked several times around the pillar before looking around the room and shining her flashlight into the darkness. Several times, at regular intervals, the light would play across a shining surface as she turned about on the spot. "More mirrors…?"

She beckoned Diane to follow her as she approached one of the mirrors that sat in a recess in the stone work that comprised the walls of the room. Etched around the glass was an intricate design that curved with the glass towards the apex of the curve the material cut into the stone, where the circuit like design met as a blank square. "What? Blank? That's...that's odd. Shouldn't there be-" She looked about and made her way to another mirror, and another blank square. She turned around and crossed the room, past the pillar to yet another mirror, and found the square at the apex of the mirror to feature seven protruding stone dots.

"Hrm. A hexagon and one in the center, huh?" She looked at the glass and pressed her hand against it. It was as cool and pristine as the others, but the fractal patterns shifting beneath it did not respond to her touch. Her mind snapped back to how they got into the ruins and she snapped her fingers. "Duh. There's probably a divot or crevice or something around here." Her hands worked their way around the stone pattern until she made it back to where she started. With a frown she turned to her sneasel and shrugged. "You wanna take a crack at it, Di?"

With a purr and a nod, the sneasel clambered up her trainer's back and onto her unhurt shoulder, and then pointed at the square. With an insistent meowing, she urged Keala to walk closer to the wall. Keala obliged the cat, and pressed against the glass. She felt Diane's weight shifting on her shoulders and then heard a soft click. A bright light filled the room for a moment and the glass began to slide aside, nearly knocking Keala over as it did.

"Whoa, whoa!" she said in alarm, stumbling to the side. Diana dropped from her shoulders with grace and landed beside her trainer with a look of smug satisfaction on her face. A low, pleased purr held in the air, and Keala rolled her eyes as she turned to face her sneasel. "Yeah, yeah. You're the smartest, Di." She gave the pokemon a swift smile, and then pointed at the freshly created passage. "Now what do you say we take that big brain of yours and put it to the test with whatever is waiting for us up ahead, huh?" The sneasel nodded, and hopped up onto her trainer's makeshift pack-seat and hugged her midsection.

"Lazy-ass cat," mumbled Keala. A soft purr came as Diane's only reply.

* * *

Janus leaned against the wall of the chamber, surveying the enormous pit before him as the men scrambled about setting up floodlights. Victor strode over, wiping his brow and panting. "Brother Janus… what do you suppose this pit is for?"

For a long while, Janus was silent, mulling over the question. He flipped it around in his head over and over, until, like a stone in the surf, it began to smooth, and at last, he spoke in a loud, harsh tone: "Tread lightly. We walk in the presence of a Gear. Do not disrespect the most sacred of places set aside for those that served the Alpha."

Victor inclined his head. "Yes, of course. But, Brother, how do you know this?" He looked his superior in the eyes with a burning desire to know to more etched across his face.

Janus strode over to the basin before the massive pit and ran his hands across the smooth basin. "Do you know, Victor, of the bonds that link us all? The bonds that hold fast the ones that came before us and shaped this world, that we could thrive?" The cultist pulled his hood from his head and fished a flask from beneath the folds of his robe, then uncapped it and poured the contents into the basin. "There is no way into these hallowed chambers without a piece of that bond. These rare fragments of the fragile threads that held up the world, made manifest, such that mortal man could clench it in his fist." He turned and began to walk around the pit, gesturing for Victor to follow. "We must take what she used to gain access to this place from her. But first we must-"

"Brother! Brother, we've found markings, but the tunnel beyond bears signs of traps!" shouted a man as he raced up to the two. The panting cultist led them to the markings next to a tunnel that led into the northeast. "Some kind of scratch marks. What sort of pokemon does she have with her? Should we be worried?"

"It's just a sneasel," replied Victor at once. "Nothing we can't handle. Especially in confined spaces where its speed can't save it. This woman should be all too easy to apprehend, Brother Janus. But- please, forgive me for my curiosity: what will we do with this...sacred fragment? Will it… will it summon Him?"

The leader scoffed and pulled his head over his head once again. "Don't be ridiculous, Victor. The Alpha isn't beckoned to our lowly plane with mere trinkets. But his pillars can be."

The man standing before the two yelped and bowed his head in prayer, then fell to his knees and turned to the hole, prostrating himself in supplication. His fast mumbles and insistent pleas irked Janus, and he nudged the man with his foot. "Get up," he spat, "are you a man or a mongrel? The Titans require force of will, not pleading prayers. Clear the tunnel of traps. Now."

With a nonstop stream of apologies, the man got to his feet and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel.

"Titan, Janus? Is it really a Titan?"

He did not grace the question with a reply. Janus strode forth without a backward glance.

* * *

Keala had taken the newly revealed hallway at a much slower clip. Better she take twice as long sweeping the ruins than fall prey to another spike trap or worse, she reasoned. Her caution was unwarranted, however, as the entire hallway proved entirely clear of traps.

The room the tunnel let out in was unusually well lit. Or rather, it had become so. As Keala approached the structure in the center of the room it began to glow a bright, pale blue, and illuminated most of the chamber. This strange pillar was roughly hewn, and seemingly made of the same material as the pendant that Diane wore. All around the pillar sat a series of glass orbs with metal strips set into differently sized blocks of stone. The same metal that snaked across the stone formed elaborate patterns that ran away from the orbs and up to the center.

The archeologist pulled a journal from her pack and sat down to sketch everything out when an insistent meowing diverted her attention. Diana stood next to her, pointing at the phone at Keala's hip. With a chuckle, she unclipped it and set it to photo mode for the sneasel to take pictures with. "Just don't crack the glass with your claws like last time, ok?"

Diana replied with a somewhat guilty and evasive mewling and took to filling the chamber with intermittent flashes of bright light. Partway through Keala's sketching, Diane returned the phone to her and sat down, purring softly.

The rest of the sketch took a considerable amount of time, as Keala decided it would be best to make sketches of the strange patterns the metal created as well as the orbs and stone. She glanced around the room and then looked up at the ceiling, where she gasped at the arrange of spheres that stuck out at her, glowing. It was like a plus sign but with an extra dot on the left and right arms, just like the symbol at the mouth of the tunnel. She frowned. "We're in the desert, it wouldn't make sense for this place to be dedicated to Regice, don't you think, Diane?"

The sneasel merely shrugged and picked at the pillar with her pendant. Each little tap created tiny flashes of blue light. The cat seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, so much so that Keala couldn't help but grin as she watched. After another minute, she said, "Come on, let's get going. See if we can't find out if there's a room dedicated to another Re-"

As she turned about she came face to face with several hooded, robed figures. The one in the center stepped forward and pulled the hood back, revealing a knowing sneer on his face and cold malice in his eyes. "Yes, dear girl, we would most certainly also like to know if there are further chambers dedicated to the Titans." He gestured to the tunnel behind him with a small smile that made Keala shiver. "Please, if you would be so kind as to lead the way with your sneasel?"

Diane got down on all fours and hissed, tucking the pendant away beneath her shawl as she did.

"I'm with Diane. Who the hell are you and what do you want?" shot back Keala.

The man rolled his eyes, and the smile melted away into a cold frown that matched his icy tone. "Don't go off making foolish decisions, girl, it won't end well for you." He snapped his fingers and the robed men behind him brandished long, cruel looking daggers. The man drew a sword from beneath his robes that glinted a multicolored set of hues in the blue light of the room, as well as three pokeballs held between his fingers. "You have an excellent opportunity to escape here with your life after you've helped us, and I should have you know…" He drove the tip of the sword effortlessly into the ground. "I am rarely so generous."


	3. Chapter 3

Keala stared back at the men, a cold sweat on her brow and running down her back. The sight of the sword and daggers had unnerved her and Diane alike - the sneasel clung to her leg, shivering with concern. "I don't think fighting our way out of this is on the table either, Di," she mumbled. With a bow of her head, she stepped forward, scooping up the sneasel as she did, and looking at the man carrying the sword. "Fine. Not sure what you mean by  _lead the way,_  though. I'm not exactly clairvoyant - everything I've been doing down here has been entirely by accident."

"Well, you've managed to find your way down to this area just fine. Clearly you are competent. Let us see that competence put to use. Tell us about this room," demanded the figure before her.

"Who are you?" replied Keala at once.

The man rolled his eyes and sighed. "Janus. What is this room for?"

The archeologist swept her gaze across the chamber and then turned back to the men before her. "I don't know. I was just making sketches and trying to figure that out myself." At the sight of Janus clenching and unclenching his hand on the hilt of the sword, she added immediately, "N-not that I don't have a guess." She turned and pointed at the large pillar of blue material in the center of the chamber. "That might be related in some way to regice. I'm almost certain of it, I'd just have to…"

She paused and stared at the pillar, and then at the differently sized blocks of stone around it. "I can't believe we missed that, Di," she mumbled. The sneasel looked across each of the stones and scratched the top of her head, an inquisitive set of growls issuing from her throat. "They're set in the same pattern as the stones on Regice's, uh…face, or whatever you wanna call it." She strode up to the pillar and placed her hand upon it. It was cool to the touch. In a barely audible whisper, she said, "Press your necklace against it for a second."

The sneasel did as she was told, and the necklace shone with a soft blue light for an instant before she broke contact with the pillar. In one fluid motion, the sneasel hid the pendant beneath her scarf once again. Keala's eyes went wide and she turned around to face Janus. "It's a shard of Regice. With a capital R."

Several of the men behind Janus gasped, and a few dropped to their knees, their heads bowed. The man to Janus' right leaned in towards the man and whispered something into his ear. Janus scowled and waved the man off. "Do not be ridiculous, Victor. There is precious little reason for her to lie to us about something like that." His gaze settled on Keala's eyes and bored through them into her soul. "You're an archeologist, after all, not some common grave robber."

Keala felt a chill run down her spine. It was not a question. She turned away and pointed to the pillar of ice-rock behind her. "What I don't understand is why its not cold. By all accounts, regice are always freezing cold, at least the smaller autonomous shards that pass as pokemon these days."

"Because this is not intended to be autonomous," replied Janus dismissively. He stepped forward, still clutching the sword and brushed Keala aside. "It is meant for something else." He paused and rubbed his chin and then threw a sideways glance to Keala. "What do you think this entire ruin is for?"

"Um, probably some kind of temple to the regis. Maybe for Regirock specifically?"

With a sharp laugh, Janus strode forward and tapped his sword against the pillar thrice. "Some archeologist you are. Come now, girl, there must be some proper  _purpose_  to this location. Surely you can make an  _educated_  guess." He turned to her and drove the sword into the ground once more, resting his hands atop the pommel.

"I don't know. The KMHPS sent me here specifically to learn more about-" Janus' eyes flashed and the men behind him muttered angrily. Keala looked around in bewilderment. "Sorry, sorry. Not a fan, I guess?"

"The Kalosian Monarchical History Preservation Society. An overlong name for an overblown batch of fools. They are not people - they're hardly better than a pack of hungry mightyena, desperate to lay claim to anything in the Alpha's providence," he spat. His eyes narrowed and bored holes through Keala. "Fortunately for you, I can hardly smell their awful stench on your person. You're here for your check."

Again, it was not a question. Keala nodded once and then turned to look at the tunnel they came in through. "Now that I've explained myself, can I…" She made to step towards the exit.

"No. There is still more to uncover. We discovered chalk markings and found you hadn't made your way down a particular tunnel yet. Surely you do not intend to leave before you've given this location the time it is due?" The men accompanying him formed a wall that blocked Keala from advancing as he spoke, and as Keala turned to face him she saw a face alive with cold eyes clashing against a knowing smirk.

She clutched Diane close to her chest and felt the sneasel rub its cheek against her. The cooling effect she had was comforting, even in the chilly air of the ruins. "Not much of a choice, eh? Let me finish looking around here and we can be on our way." She turned about and strode to the pillar in the center of the room and began to examine it more closely. In her head she sprinted through scenario after scenario that could help her engineer an escape, her eyes only half-heartedly scanning the etchings in the pillar that had begun to reveal themselves as she stood in different places and let the light play across the surface of the pillar at odd angles.

Her eyes caught up something that piqued her interest and pulled her out of her frantic thoughts. She squinted and stepped closer and mumbled, her voice barely audible, "Look at this…" Crudely etched figures marched towards a mass of what appeared to be rock, and a bit further down the pillar she saw a larger figure place a small etching of stone bearing dots in the same configuration as the one upon the ceiling into a stone basin. The next etching revealed a massive, blocky figure emerging before a scattering of prostrated figures. Nothing more followed.

"The basin…"

* * *

As they made their way back through the tunnels and chambers, Keala caught sight of Diane craning her head around to leer at the men trailing behind them. "Don't get too brave there, Di, way more of them than us."

The sneasel fidgeted in her arms and continued leering back nevertheless. The fur on her body was standing on end, and the feathers that grew out of the corner of her head twitched now and again, often in time with a flash in her eyes. With a sigh, Keala rubbed the back of the creature's head and cooed, "It's fine, it's fine." Diane looked less on edge long enough to mewl up at Keala before returning to her leers and fidgeting.

The footsteps echoing in this stone hallway made the hairs on the back of Keala's neck stand on end, while the spartan walls left her with a sense of unease. The construction felt younger than the rest of the ruins, with a smoother incline and precisely cut support structure rounding out the polished stone of the pathway. She glanced back and called out, "Somehow, I get the feeling this isn't nearly as old as the rest of the ruins."

In the dim light, she could barely make out the outline of Janus, who called back, "Hardly. This passageway was not for religious purposes. The cracking in the floor and walls should give that much away."

Keala faced forward again and pouted.  _She_  was the archeologist here, but he was right. The cracks in the walls and floor, along with the rare rough patch or mismatched support beam, showed that this passageway was meant for something more mundane. Or so she thought. As they emerged into the room at the end of the passageway, her jaw dropped.

The room seemed perfectly circular, with the outer wall punctuated at each cardinal and intercardinal direction by a full length piece of the same black glass she saw in the other chamber in the ruins. The construction of the various stone apparatuses here jogged her memory - it looked curiously similar in shape to many of the unusual structures she saw back in the sewers beneath Kalos. The pillar at the center of the room acted a sort of locus for the various stone structures, with each of them running a strip of metal along their surface, across the floor, and up to various glass orbs on the pillar. She approached the pillar, waving her flashlight around as she attempted to map the entire structure in her head. Her hand ran across the cool stonework of the largest slab before a particularly impressive pillar in the center of the room and found several divots large enough to slot an expanded pokeball into. She frowned and ran her flashlight across the stone. "Seems a bit too big for the pendant, Di…" she mumbled to the sneasel.

She turned about and cleared her throat. "Not too sure what this is for… But whatever it is, there's not really any natural illumination here coming out of the orbs and what not. My guess is this is some kind of…" Her brow furrowed and her brain felt like it flipped over. "A machine? It can't be…"  _Was_  it similar to the construct she saw back at Kalos? "That stone the KHMPS gave me…"

"Yes," said a voice immediately to the right of her. She jumped and turned, illuminating Janus as she did. "This stonework comprises a very specific machine. What it does, however, is not anything you need to know. Instead, we must focus on powering it on."

Keala shook her head. "I don't think we can turn it on-"

"Well, I hope you like these ruins then, girl, because you won't be leaving them until you do."

With a gulp, the archeologist looked about the room with her flashlight. The beam of light shone across the bodies of the men that came with Janus, standing abreast before the exit of the room. "Okay, okay, uh…" Her thoughts turned back to the basin in the main chamber. "Listen, uh, why don't we uh...go back to the main chamber? I think there might be a power source we can activate there."

"Oh? And why do you suppose that?" Janus' cold stare seemed to pierce right through her.

"Well, uh, there's supposed to be something important here, right? This place is dedicated in some way to the Regis, right?" Janus nodded. "Then what if there's some kind of latent power here that could be used to help power these structures? Something that uh, never goes out? That isn't too far-fetched, is it?"

The man considered her for a long while before he frowned. "I do not think that is particularly far-fetched. However, there is precious little reason for you to seek it. Such power is...reserved." He brandished his sword and Diane screeched. "Once we get that sneasel of yours back into her ball…" He rushed at Keala and so she dove out of the way behind a stone slab. "The rest is unimportant!"

Keala scrambled away towards a corner of the chamber, calling out for Diane to catch up with her. Her heart was pounding against her chest. "What the hell are you trying to do?"

A light blinked into existence as Janus held his own flashlight up and scanned the room. "Tying up loose-ends. The dogs of the KHMPS cannot know this location for what it is."

Keala dove from stone pillar to stone pillar. "My job isn't worth this! You can keep these ruins for all I care!" She stood and waved her flashlight about looking for Janus and the others. The men had begun to move, but several seemed lost, confused and even panicked as Diane struck out from the shadows. The sneasel's ability to act without Keala's instruction had begun to weigh on her mind recently, but at the moment, she was simply glad Diane was so enterprising. Several growls and hisses rang out in the dark chamber alongside shouts of pain. Piercing red lights of pokemon being called from balls flashed across the walls but the confused growls and buzzes made Keala almost grin. None of them could fight well in the dark.

A brilliant light illuminated her figure for a moment and made her eyes water. "There!" She dove to the ground behind another stone slab and crawled in a panic along the floor. A dark figure came around the pillar and with a scream she sprang up and tackled the man to the floor. The terrified hooded figure waved his hands up at her as she, with a frenzied scream, brought the base of her flashlight down into his nose. There was a loud  _crack_  and the man went quiet.

Several loud screams of pain that sounded horribly familiar filled the chamber. "Diane! Diane, please, head towards me! You can stop fighting, we have to ru-" The word caught in the air as her flashlight stopped on a small huddle of pokemon - two aipom and a purugly - ganged up on a limp figure between the three of them. "Diane!" She seized the flashlight the man beneath her had been clutching and flung it at the purugly, where it connected square with the back of its head and sent it into a dizzy, confused stumble.

She saw a red eye flash between the aipoms' legs and a single flash of bright light, and then Diane began to rise. Keala shook her flashlight hopelessly as it flickered from the damage she'd caused it after bludgeoning the man and finally managed to get it to maintain a stable shine. She focused it on Diane and saw only a dark blur strike the aipom and purugly before it disappeared. Several more screams of pain, this time deeper and decidedly human rang out and then a deeper purr sprang to life beside her. She turned and shone her flashlight on the body of a weavile. Scratched and bleeding, Diane nevertheless gave her trainer a toothy grin and then pointed towards the exit and offered a pointed nod.

The archeologist stumbled to her feet as quickly as she could and followed closely behind her freshly evolved partner. As the two sprinted up the path, she strained her ears to listen for approaching footsteps. They began to greet her ears, though they seemed a considerable distance away still. "Double time, Di! Go! Go!"

They burst into the main chamber and came to a rough halt before the enormous pit in the room. "Where the hell is the…" Keala's hands scrambled for her belt and began groping desperately for her compass before she realized she had no idea where the path that led back to the surface laid. With a loud swear, she bolted to her left and waved for Diane to follow. Her flickering flashlight illuminated the path ahead poorly, and she leaned into the wall beside her. Without vision of where the pit began, it felt as if the hole was always a single misstep to her right.

The basin she'd seen when she and Diane first entered the chamber appeared in the flickering light before her. "There! Dianequickgimmeyournecklace," she said as fast as she could manage.

The weavile looked taken aback, and clutched the pendant.

"Please, trust me, you'll get it back…" she held her hand out. "I, uh, I think." With more hesitation than the situation called for, Diane removed her necklace and dropped it into Keala's hand. She turned and placed it into the basin and bit her lip. It began to glow and then… nothing.

The sounds of footsteps began to echo in the chamber from the direction she'd run from - thought they were still distant. Voices began to bleed in and still the pendant sat in the basin, inert. "What the hell are you supposed to do? Does it…" She stamped her foot. "Do something! Anything!" She pulled her canteen from her hip and poured the contents into the basin. "Please!"

The basin exploded.

Keala threw her arms up to shield herself from the blast, but it never came. She chanced a peek past her arms and found that the exploded basin had frozen in place. In the center of the ice, the pendant hung and the soft glow it emitted intensified and began to spread across the ice, until the entire, oddly shaped lump was glowing a brilliant blue. The ground began to rumble and voices met her ear. "What in all the Alpha's providence has happened here?" The next rumble sent Keala and Diane toppling over. Judging by the shouts of pain and confusion that echoed in the chamber, so too had her pursuers.

The rumbling began to intensify and dust and bits of rock began to dislodge themselves from the walls and ceiling. The air became thick with the dust and sand began to pour in from cracks. Keala struggled to her feet using the surer-footed Diane for support and began to wobble her way towards where she thought the pathway out of the chamber and the ruins proper lay. Several times she felt herself lurch roughly to one side or the other, and then the entire room was filled with a red light. She turned to look back at the pit and saw the figures of the men in the distance struggling to make their way towards her - while others seemed to be running back down the passage. She saw Janus standing resolute, however, his sword planted in the ground and his gaze directed into the pit.

She didn't have time to consider this and began to sprint up the now illuminated path out of the ruins. She broke into a dead sprint, closely following behind Diane. Her chest burned and stitches crawled up her sides. The dust had followed her and it had begun to take its toll.  _Just a bit further, just a bit further…_

She felt the ground beneath her quake again and nearly lost her footing as the pathway shifted from smooth walkway to rough rock. She was nearly there, and Diane was already somewhere down along the path, calling insistently at her in her new, deeper mewl. She rounded a corner and flinched away from the bright light of the desert instinctively. Clawed paws grasped the arm shielding her eyes and pulled her along and out onto the hot, soft sands.

Her eyes watered, her lungs screamed and the claws continued to pull insistently away from the rumbling ruins behind them. Even here on the surface she could feel the sand shifting curiously beneath her. Each time she opened her eyes they burned less, until finally she could hold them open without them watering. The claws stopped pulling insistently and the patter of Diane's feet in the sand ahead of her stopped. She could hear the weavile panting as heavily as she was, and looked gratefully up at her partner.

"What the-? Diane, you ran us all the way out here with your eyes closed?" she said in alarm.

The weavile grinned at her, shielding her eyes, one of them half open and quivering.

The ground beneath them churned and laid them flat on the ground. It churned again and Keala rolled around to her back and tried to sit up to look over at the ruins. Her mouth fell open.

The rock that sat over the ruins had crumbled apart and the sands around it had begun to form a sort of sinkhole as the last few bits of stone sank into the desert. A loud boom rang out into the air. "Thunder?" Keala glanced about. The sky was clear. The boom rang out again, accompanied with the crunching of stone and the spraying of sand. The growing sinkhole erupted into a column of sand and rock and an enormous figure rose out of the sands. Spheres of red, arranged in an "H" pierced the veil of sand around it and began to rise.

It was taller than any building she'd seen. "By the Tapu…" Keala stared, awestruck at the figure that continued to rise out of the sands. "Regirock. The  _original_  Regirock."

A low rumble that began somewhere in her chest began to fill the air, rising in volume steadily until it was a roar that made her certain her eardrums would burst. She clenched her hands tightly around her ears and shouted in pain. She glanced next to her and saw Diane doing the same.

Regirock, seemingly taller than the heavens themselves, stepped out of the sinkhole and sent another enormous shockwave through the ground, and a wave of sand came straight at the duo, ready to swallow them whole. And then it froze in place.

The sky turned black, the sand that whipped about hung in place and the deafening roar of Regirock was snuffed out.

Beside Keala, a crackle of electricity and strange purplish particles formed a circle and began to swirl. They swirled faster and faster and then a roar echoed out of her ears and into the air around her, dying somewhere far away - and then the roar was reborn and filled her entire body. She bowled over several times as the air around the phenomenon exploded.

She pulled herself out of the sand and saw the imprints that she left with her body remained. Everything she had just done had remained - the dents and skids in the sand she and Diane had made as they recoiled away from the roar had not filled with shifting sand. Her heart hammered in his chest. "Is this-"

Steel gray and deep blue crested the swirling energies, giving way to a sloped skull and piercing red eyes. They rose further out of the sand, bringing with them a mouth baring teeth and a long neck. And then they stopped. The creature focused its gaze upon her and barked,

" _A pillar long left to rest,_

_Stands, no brethren abreast."_

Keala gaped up at Dialga. "Y-y-you're...y-you c-can control…" The god squinted down at the girl and its expression grew cross. She shut up immediately. With a growl, it continued:

" _The hands of man - expected._

_Alpha's graceless life,_

_Wardens' endless strife,_

_Time will see this perfected."_

The pokemon's eyes flashed a brilliant blue and Keala felt a strange sensation come over her. Something tugged inside of her and yanked her back - in every direction. But as quickly as it came it was gone. The force inside her pushed her forward again in every direction and her head throbbed. "What are you doing?" she shouted up at the creature.

Dialga's head craned down at her and roared. She fell immediately silent and felt Diane clutch her leg in fear. The god of time turned its head and regarded her with a single red eye.

" _Foolish girl, take heed:_

_Of the pillars, you've no need._

_Punishment is more than earned,_

_But mercy lives in Alpha's grace,_

_Exercised at the Wardens' pace,_

_And so forgiveness is "deserved."_

It dragged the word out and drenched it in sarcasm. Keala gulped and knelt down to hug Diane. Dialga reared back and barked,

" _See that you return here never."_

The world around her began to spin as the god sank back into the strange swirl of energy beneath it. The colors blurred together and made Keala feel dizzy. She shook her head wearily and then felt herself lose balance and fall backwards into the sand.

The feeling of sand impacting her back never came, and it felt as if she'd fallen on a swivel in space into an upright position. Her stomach flipped over twice and she fought down the urge to vomit. Beside her, Diane swayed on the spot and shook her head. Keala looked back towards Regirock and felt her jaw drop again. The pokemon was gone, the sinkhole in the sands had disappeared and the entire area where the stone that sat over the ruins had been restored to its original condition. "Did we… did we go back in time?" She peered down at Diane - she was still a weavile. "Maybe not? Where's your pendant?"

Diane clutched at her chest instinctively and then sagged. She shook her head and looked up at Keala with doleful eyes. "I guess that's still in the ruins…" She sighed and knelt down to hug the weavile. "I'm sorry, Diane. I said I'd give it back to you but, well, we can't exactly go back down into the ruins. Those men down there mean business. They were going to kill us. For some reason. I still don't know what for."

The weavile glanced longingly back at the ruins and then nodded once. She pointed in the direction of their jeep and looked at Keala meaningfully.

"Yeah. Let's get going. I need to talk to Joyce about this. Hey, while we're back in Alola, maybe we can find you something else you can use as a pendant!" said Keala in what she hope was a reassuring tone. Diane shrugged and began to walk glumly back to the jeep, and she followed suit shortly after. Her head was swimming in the events that had just occurred and looked forward to booking a flight back to her island home. It was going to take a lot of writing to unpack this.

She watched Diane's retreating back and sighed. "I'm sorry, Di. I promise we'll find you something to replace that pendant." Silently, she hoped it had become lost in the ruins - she shuddered to think what would happen if the men that chased her got a hold of it. Perhaps it had been destroyed when it summoned Regirock. She looked at the stone that sat, unassuming, over the ruins and bit her lip in worry.  _Please_  let it have been destroyed. Perhaps, if they got a hold of it again, Dialga could step in and stop them?

As she got into the jeep and turned the key, she worry continued to roll over in her stomach. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and swiped over to her contacts.

"Hello, it's Hashimoto. Can you transfer me to Mr. Polusson? Sure, I can wait." There was a pause, a click and then a grunt on the other end. "Mr. Polusson, there were indeed ruins beneath that rock. They're exceedingly dangerous and should not be entered - I barely escaped with my life after setting off several traps. I cannot complete the contract, so you'll need to find someone else. Strike my name from the pool of contractors. Have a nice day." She hung up without waiting for a response and stared for a long while at the screen.

 _They'll send people. They'll try to get in. Maybe they'll find those men and deal with them._  She banged her head against the steering wheel and then threw the jeep into drive.  _Or maybe they'll ruin everything._  She turned away from the rock and drove off back towards the only road that cut through the desert.

 

**I: JEWEL OF THE DESERT - END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that the name of this work has changed. Sons of the Alpha is now in two parts. Jewel of the Desert now comprises Part One. Stay tuned for Part Two: The Alpha's Reach, coming some time after Honor, Courage and Rectitude concludes. See you then.


End file.
